CALLUM MCKELVIE SUNDAY NEW SERIES: HORROR EXPRESS

WE START A NEW SERIES this week and it’s time for me to get all nostalgic- at least personally so. Each week I try and do something different with my little post for PCAS, not actually an easy thing when writing weekly about the films of one actor! Of course I’m not suggesting that Peter Cushing’s life and rich filmography doesn’t provide ample room for creativity within my column, but more along the lines of how I structure my post it can be difficult to come up with some new and exciting.  

ALWAYS HOWEVER I TRY to make it as personal as possible. I’m following in the footsteps of many a great contributor to the site and lest I repeat what someone else has already said (and probably in words far grander than I could ever conjure) I like to let my personal opinion come through as much as possible. Usually then, I tend to follow a review or a ‘list’ format, be that a simple discussion of a film or ‘my top ten…etc. etc.’, but for the next new weeks I’ll be trying something completely different. Beginning with this discussion on Horror Express I’m going to randomly select films from Cushing’s filmography that I have something of a personal history with and, if you’ll allow me dear readers, tell you about it.

ABOVE: YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO WATCH THE WHOLE FILM! 

JUST PRESS PLAY!

BY THE TIME I came into contact with Horror Express, I would have been around age thirteen or fourteen. I’d already encountered a healthy number of Hammer and Amicus pictures by this point along with the odd Cushing feature made by neither studio. I can’t remember how I first became aware of the title (most likely by browsing Amazon or a HMV store) but I do remember when my attention was attracted enough for me to scour You-Tube for clips. You see, the scene with the guard when the creature attacks him, turning his eyes white and causing him to bleed from them, was the first scene in a Cushing picture that actively scared me.

IT'S AN ODD THING fear and truth be told the attraction when watching Horror from this period for me was never the possibility of being scared, but mostly the rich gothic atmosphere which these films were soaked in. Of course there was the odd title that really did get to me, the sequence in House of Wax where Price’s wax face is smashed away springs to mind along with more obvious ones such as The Innocents (1960). Cushing films though? Not really.

THAT WAS UNTIL HORROR EXPRESS of course. When I finally watched it I found that indeed the effect still lingered. The opening sequence with Lee in the cave, the mystery at the station, the creature breaking loose. The opening fifty minutes or so of the film were soaked in an atmosphere so palpable, with the creature shot so wonderfully in almost total darkness, as to genuinely have a frightening edge to them. Then it got WEIRD. To my 13 or 14 year-old self the final half of Horror Express, whilst certainly entertaining, was a total let down. The body swapping alien plot seemed like an entirely different film and any genuine menace was sorely lacking. I put the DVD on my shelf, watched it occasionally and thought nothing more on the matter.

CUT TO SEVERAL YEARS LATER. Me and some friends are having a get together…with some refreshments of course and I’m asked to pick a film that will entertain us. Browsing my collection I go through the usual suspects before landing upon...Horror Express. For a short while my finger hovered over the plastic case, half remembering a few genuinely shocking moments, some genuinely funny moments (intentionally and not), some awful model work and a bizarre alien plot. Realising that there was enough there for even the tamest of drinking games I grabbed it. 

AS WE WATCHED I was surprised by how much the film was enjoyed by the gathering and not just in a ‘laugh-at-it-cos-it’s-bad’ way. There were genuine gasps of shock, a lot of laughs at the dodgy train shots, continuous whistling of the theme and a cheer as the creature is destroyed.

THUS TO ME, Horror Express will forever be Cushing’s perfect midnight movie. Camp, over the top, ridiculous, violent (compared to many of Cushing’s films) but incredibly and undeniably fun. If you’re not a fan of this one, perhaps put off by the mix of ridiculous scenes and genuinely chilling ones, grab yourself some mates, beers and experience it how I did. It may not change your opinion but it does mean you’ll be in a room full of people screaming ‘Monster, we’re British you know!’ and that’s no bad thing.

CHRISTOPHER LEE SATURDAY: GET YOUR TICKET FOR TOMORROWS TRAIN AND YVONNE MITCHELL REMEMBERED

#CHRISTOPHERLEESATURDAY! THIS WEEKEND much of our time is more than taken making a short journey through the film 'HORROR EXPRESS' from 1972. It was film that both Christopher Lee and Cushing enjoyed making. Even though, as you will read above, Cushing was still much effected by the terrible loss of his wife, Helen, Lee managed to have Peter focus on the production at hand. The result is a film that was appreciated back then on it's release, and even today. Recent DVD and BLU RAY releases have sold well, and gained even more appreciation. The two roles that Lee and Cushing play, come over well. A change from their usual roles of one destroying the other, here we have interesting characters who are in competition, but have to pull together to destroy someone else and all their supporters!

BELOW: THIS SUNDAY sees CALLUM MCKELVIE's weekly feature focus on, HORROR EXPRESS TOO. A personal spin on his first memory of watching the feature plus we'll be uploading the ENTIRE film from our PCAS YOUTUBE CHANNEL, with many images and supporting images through out the feature. JOIN US TOMORROW! We will also be posting the FOUR WINNERS of our CINEFICCION  MAGAZINE prizes!

BRITISH ACTRESS YVONNE MITCHELL  was first and foremost a stage actress who began her career quite early as a teen. By the time of her death, she had performed under the theatre lights for over four decades. Her output in films and TV paled in comparison, but the work she put out in those mediums were of unusually high quality with mature themes. The dark-haired actress made her film debut in a key role in The Queen of Spades (1949) and proceeded to become a moving, thoughtful, often anguished presence throughout the 1950s, winning the British Film Award for her touching, sterling performance as the biological mother of a foster child in The Divided Heart (1954). A year before that, she appeared with PETER CUSHING in the BBC production of '1984' as Julia. The broadcast gained much publicity for both her and Cushing, stirring the public in it's two live performances.

THE PUBLIC WERE so upset by Orwell's story and the BBC almost uncensored production that a debate in the government  House of Commons, after the first LIVE show and the planned second live broadcast, debated if the broadcast should go ahead at all. It did. It certainly didn't mar her career, but for Cushing it set the motion of his career forever becoming tilted towards the Horror and Fantasy genre, on both the big screen and tv. Yvonne's  slovenly, cuckolded wife in Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) won her the Berlin International Film Festival Award. Other important films included Escapade (1955), Sapphire (1959), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) and Johnny Nobody (1961). On the sly, Yvonne was a novelist of both children and adult books and an award-winning playwright. She also penned an enormously successful biography entitled "Colette--A Taste for Life" based on the famed French writer. The wife of film and stage critic Derek Monsey, she wrote her biography in 1957.

YVONNE MITCHELL, changed her name legally in 1946 from Yvonne Frances Joseph to Yvonne Mitchell (Mitchell was her mother's maiden name). She also deducted a decade from her age, which is why many sources have listed 1925 as her birth year. She married author and critic Derek Monsey in 1952, the couple would later divorce, only to be reconciled. They would remarry in late 1978, just months before Monsey died of a heart attack on 13 February 1979, with Mitchell dying of cancer just over a month later.

TELLY SAVALAS REMEMBERED TODAY

Who Loves Ya Baby?...Today we remember the birthday of the late Telly Savalas. A much loved and larger than life man, on and off the screen. His Peter Cushing connection is his rip roaring performance as the Cossack, Captain Kazan in the 'run-away-train-with-a-monster-and-zombies-onboard' epic, 'Horror Express'. It's a film that never stops going up gears through out it's tense 90 mins. When Savalas appears, almost an hour in, it really is full steam ahead! Along with Cushing and Lee, he makes the film a whole lot of fun. Most of us remember him as the lolly sucking cop in the excellent tv show, 'Kojak' and his quick to catch on catch phrase, 'Who Loves Ya Baby?'

You'll find our REVIEW and Gallery of 'HORROR EXPRESS' right HERE